U.S. Government steps up its efforts to track down journalist sources.

A former government official was
recently presented with presented with extensive phone records of his
interactions with James Risen, a reporter for the New York Times and
author of the book, “State of War.”

The investigation concerns a series of leaks, reported by Risen in State of
War and with associate Eric Lichtblau in the Times, which lead to the
discovery of an “extensive,
off-the-books domestic spying program” later confirmed by the Bush
Administration. Justice Department officials confirmed that prosecutors
subpoenaed Risen’s phone records in an effort to ferret out his sources, and
sources close to the investigation indicated that at least one former
government official has already been questioned.

The Times’ source, a grand jury witness speaking on anonymity, said
he was not clear whose records the DoJ is accessing, noting that it’s possible
that investigators could target Risen’s phone records, or the records of the
officials he may have spoken with. The Times also reports that it has,
thus far, not received any subpoenas, though it notes that it’s possible the
government could subpoena its phone company without the giving the Times anynotice.

Justice Department officials served Risen a subpoena earlier this year
January, demanding the sources for a specific chapter in State of War that
details a CIA plan to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program.

Joel Kurtzberg, the New York attorney representing Risen on behalf of his
employer and publisher, declined to comment.

Risen’s reporting set a climate that helped propel evidence of an
AT&T/NSA wiretapping alliance into the limelight, galvanizing the civil
rights groups to action and setting telcos and the Bush Administration aflame.
The government is currently moving to crush the resulting lawsuits by invoking
the State Secrets privilege, which have the potential of quickly ending the
battle.

His articles – which won him a shared Pulitzer Prize in 2006 – are just the
latest target of a government seemingly intent on punishing reporters that fail
to cooperate. Times reporter Judith Miller spent nearly three months in
jail after refusing to divulge her sources in a leak that identified a C.I.A.
operative, and California freelance reporter Josh Wolf spent over half a year
in jail after he refused to testify before a grand jury and hand over
videotapes of an anarchist
rally in San Francisco that turned violent. In Wolf’s case, a three-judge
panel in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that his behavior was in
defiance of the “long-established obligation of a reporter to comply with grand
jury subpoenas.”

Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press executive director Lucy A.
Daiglish warned reporters of the Bush Administration’s “really egregious”
efforts at intimidation, telling press members to spur technology and “do your
reporting the old fashioned way – meet your sources on a park bench.”

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Wire Tapping is an illegal search/seizure (which is protected against in the 4th Amendment) if a US citizen is involved in any way unless a warrant is obtained (in this case the FISA court was specifically bypassed.

From the Supreme Court case Katz vs US:

"only those searches conducted pursuant to warrants were reasonable. The Government's duty to preserve the national security did not override the gurarantee that before government could invade the privacy of its citizens it must present to a neutral magistrate evidence sufficient to support issuance of a warrant authorizing that invasion of privacy. 153 This protection was even more needed in ''national security cases'' than in cases of ''ordinary'' crime, the Justice continued, inasmuch as the tendency of government so often is to regard opponents of its policies as a threat and hence to tread in areas protected by the First Amendment as well as by the Fourth. 154 Rejected also was the argument that courts could not appreciate the intricacies of investigations in the area of national security nor preserve the secrecy which is required"

Once again, you are parsing language, this time from a case that has a lot of negative history (though not fully overturned), and using it to try and make the whole point. The Katz case was about truly domestic calls, from one US number to another US within the US. The current issue is NOT about DOMESTIC tapping. The calls tapped by the NSA here were INTERNATIONAL calls. The Katz case also clearly sets out three exceptions to the holding in the case, one of which is from Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden , which states that "the 4th amendment does not require police officers to delay in the course of investigation if to do so would gravely endanger their lives or the lives of others. Speed was essential here." 387 U.S. 294, 298-99 (1967). That is the basis behind the NSA wiretapping program.

You are crazy if you think that the NSA program does not protect us from grave dangers. You would probably be one of the first to cry like those after 9/11, "What did you know and when did you know it?" or "Why did you not do something to find this information out and save us from attack?" YOU CANNOT HAVE THIS ISSUE BOTH WAYS. In case you have been living in a cave for the last 15 years, you know there are Islamofascist terrorist in this world, both in the US and other countries, that will stop at absolutely nothing to blow themselves up in order to kill even innocent civilians (9/11 is one of many prime examples in just the past 15 years). What happens if the NSA does not do this and we are attacked?

On top of that, the law is such that if the police want to tap your phone for the monitoring of domestic calls, they can do it. They just have 24 hours in which to get a warrant. If they don't, then it cannot be used in court against YOU.

This NSA wiretapping program was passed by Congress, just as FISA was, and it amended the FISA rules specifically for the situations at issue now. As with many other surveillance laws, this one is VERY narrowly tailored to specific situations, and thankfully, will most likely pass constitutional muster, especially with the present composition of the Supreme Court.

1. Katz has not been overturned in any way (and the only "negative history" is from the opinion of ultra right-wing conservatives).

2. It matters not a whit WHERE the taps are made... it is illegal to have a warrantless tap on the phone of a US citizen anywhere in the world .

3. Warden, Md. Penitentiary v. Hayden is the biggest stretch I can think of in this case!The claim in the case was:

A police officer may seize mere evidence—evidence that is not an instrumentality of a crime, the fruits of a crime, or contraband—found in the course of a valid warrantless search conducted in a criminal suspect's home immediately after a hot pursuit of the suspect.

The mere fact that the administration is performing these taps as a planned matter of course tells us that Hayden shouldn't apply at all!I would guess that once the Administration's case is finally allowed to go to court (if it is), it will be absolutely destroyed as most of their other assertions have.

4. Your attempt to put words in my mouth like"You would probably be one of the first to cry like: those after 9/11, "What did you know and when did you know it?""This is absolutely wrong...I think that giving up even a tiny amount of freedom (which these wiretaps do) for this wild goose chase is worse than 9/11 ever was...

We lost 3000 good people on 9/11 (3 of whom I counted as friends).I think those victims would be more shocked at the reprocussions than the event itself though...since then:

1. We've lost more than 4000 young soldiers

2. We've had a new doctrine of preemptive war introduced, saying that it's OK for us to kill people if we get scared, even if what scares us turns out to be false.

3. We've had the suspension of Habeas Corpus at Gitmo

4. The checks and balances of the Judicial system (one of the foundations of our government) has been ignored on numerous occasions (firing/appointing Federal Attys for political gain, bypassing the FISA court, etc...)

5. Torture has been condoned by the Administration and the Justice Department